Brent Maher's Musical Journey in "Night of the Orphan Train"

From Music to Novels: Brent Mayer's Journey with The Night of the Orphan Train
In this episode of Almost Live Nashville, host Tony Mantor sits down with Grammy-winning producer and songwriter Brent Maher to discuss his new venture as an author.
Brent shares the fascinating journey behind his new musical novel, 'Night of the Orphan Train,' inspired by a road sign he saw during a vacation.
The novel blends historical fiction with original music and delves into the lives of orphaned children transported across the U.S. in the early 20th century.
Brent describes the process of creating the book, developing characters, and the rewarding experience of stepping into a new creative role.
The episode also highlights insights into the entertainment industry and the resilient human spirit.

Meet Brent Mayer: From Music to Literature
The Inspiration Behind 'Night of the Orphan Train'
The Orphan Train Era: A Historical Insight
Creating the Musical Novel
Bringing Characters to Life
The Journey of Writing and Producing
Final Thoughts and Future Endeavors

INTRO/OUTRO: T.Wild
Mantor Music BMI

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

My career in the entertainment industry has enabled me to work with a diverse range of talent. Through my years of experience, I've recognized two essential aspects. Industry professionals, whether famous stars or behind-the-scenes staff, have fascinating stories to tell. Secondly, audiences are eager to listen to these stories, which offer a glimpse into their lives and the evolution of their life stories. This podcast aims to share these narratives, providing information on how they evolved into their chosen career. We will delve into their journey to stardom, discuss their struggles and successes, and hear from people who help them achieve their goals. Get ready for intriguing behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the fascinating world of entertainment. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville. Joining us today is Brent Mayer. If you don't recognize the name, with a little research, you will recognize songs he has written and produced. From penning timeless hits for legends like Kenny Rogers and the Juds to steering multi-platinum albums that define country music's golden era. His touch has shaped the soundtrack for generations. But today, he's stepping into a new spotlight as an author. With his captivating new novel, Night of the Orphan Train, a musical novel. Blending heart-wrenching historical fiction with the soul-stirring power of original songs, this book transports us to the raw, resilient world of the Orphan Train era, where hope and harmony rise from the ashes of hardship. The journey on how this became a reality is truly fascinating. So before we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted show right after a word from our sponsors. Thanks for joining us today. Well, I really appreciate the invite. Oh, it's my pleasure. Great to have you here. Sure, sure. With everything you've done, Grammy Awards, hit records, there's not much you haven't done in the music business. Now you're delving into the book world. Can you give us a little background on your journey to writing this book?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Oh, it's it's the nuttiest story, Tony. It wasn't a scratch that I had to itch. You know what I mean? I mean, I was totally happy making records and writing songs, and that's what my future held for me. So anyway, my wife and I are driving back from Colorado on vacation, and on I-70, we're right in the middle of Kansas, and there is this big sign that I'd never really seen before, and it said, Exit here, visit the Orphan Train Museum, Concordia, Kansas. And there was a picture of this wafy little child, you know, and very period looking. And I went, What? An orphan train, what? And so uh Janelle saw it, and so she pops out her computer. My this is my wife, and she types in Orphan Train Museum, Concordia, Kansas. And this thing pops right up, and it's a Spasonian museum. If we start reading the information they had there, it was astounding, and we started finding out about part of our country's history that hardly anybody knows about.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yeah, that's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

I actually never heard of it, and I'd never heard of anything called an orphan train before. What we found out is from the uh mid-1800s up until the early 1920s in New York City and some of the other big cities on the East Coast too, but primarily New York City, these huge epidemics would come through of like the Spanish flu and some variations of that, economic downturns, and then later on around 1917, World War I plops up. What was happening when the Spanish flu would come through, tens of thousands of people would get killed, would die. You know, sometimes the parents would die and kids would survive. And so, you know, if there wasn't family help there of some sort, these little kids would be left on the street because our country hadn't developed any social services at that point. This went on for almost 60 years. And during that time period, at any time, there would be thousands of homeless kids, street children, begging for money, whatever they had to do to survive. There was just sort of no end to it, and they called them epidemics.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

With all these things going on, there must have been someone there that could help.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

There was this Methodist minister, William Loring Brace was his name. It was just absolutely eating him up, witnessing these little children, and they were just everywhere. So one day he got this notion, and I write it in my book, that he was reading a newspaper. What was happening then is a lot of immigrants that were coming into the country weren't just being satisfied by getting New York City and say, wow, here we are, because the West was just exploding. You know, with the big land grab in Oklahoma, they were actually paying people to come and farm X amount of land. And so the good Reverend had this idea, surely some of these families could use an extra kid. Maybe the moms had nothing but boys and once a girl, or maybe it's just the opposite. You know, they've had three girls, and the mom says, That's enough for me. And the dad says, you know, I need a couple of boys here to help me farm. I mean, whatever the circumstances might be, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Yeah, that actually sounds like it was a pretty good idea.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

And so William Brace put together this group of businessmen and women, and they call themselves the Children's Age Society. And they put together a plan to where they would sort of swoop these kids off the streets, not with a lot of ceremony, I might add, pick them up in paddy wagons or whatever vehicles or whatever they could do, and they take them to the train stations, and they put him in these train cars early on, box cars, send them to a destination. Let's just say, you know, for this conversation, let's just say it's Topeka, Kansas, okay? Well, then they would contact, let's say, a Methodist church and some other churches and say, we're sending a train car or two full of adoptable children. We want you to put the word out in your community to come by, get vetted, so to speak, at your church. And of course, that was a very mixed bag, you can imagine. But you show up to the platform at a certain date and pick out your kid. They would put flyers all over the towns with a wafy little child and say, I need a home, I need to be adopted, etc. etc. They'd put up in barbershops and you know, grocery stores everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

By the sound of it, I'm guessing people showed up and went along with it.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Sure enough, people did show up. And some got wonderful homes. Well, like one fellow became a mayor of New Orleans as he grew up, you know, and another fellow became a governor, I'll take a Montana or something like that. So there were some real success stories.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

For every success story, I'm sure there's one that's exactly the opposite.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

You know, some other kids, it was kind of like slavery. At the end of the day, they took off the streets of New York City in this period of time, 250,000 children, and transported them to every single state in the Union.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

It is stunning. I mean, I know a lot of people that are born and raised in New York City, and they have never heard anything about this. So we had a day and a half left of driving. My wife and I, we could not pull away from that website, and then there were a lot of other websites that were connected to it. Could you expand on that? The kids that would be on these trains, they called them orphan train riders. Well, there's websites for them. In those websites, there were a lot of letters from boys and girls that actually lived that experience, and now their great-great-grandchildren are in possession of these letters. So there's a lot of information about this out there to be had if anybody knew about it. So anyway, it had just a profound effect on me.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah, I can tell. Not only because you wrote the book, but because of the excitement you have in telling the story.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

I mean, I just could envision, you know, how some of these things were transpiring, and I guess um, let's see, a little bit outside of St. Louis the next day, heading back here to Franklin, I started writing the song. It was just simply called Orphan Train. It was like a first-person song from this one boy that got scooped up and put on the train. And so I had the whole first verse and the course written, and the next day I was gonna be working with Trey Hensley and uh Rob Ice on their record, and we were gonna write something for their record. And so, you know, we sat down and we're talking, how was vacation, Brett? Oh man, I had a great time out there, and you guys have some good gigs. Oh, we had some great gigs. And I said, you know, the darnest saying, I saw this road sign, and then I started in on it, and they were like laborcaster. And I said, And you know, I just want to start this tin. So I played them the first verse in the chorus. Trey said, Man, he said, that's he said, that's beautiful. I said, Well, you want to help me finish it? Because after I wrote the first three or four lines, I could just hear Trey's voice singing it. They were so excited to help me finish it. And then in that one song, three little kids were given birth. There was Jacob, and then there's uh Billy, and then there's Caroline, and they're all about 11 years old. So we finished the tune. We went in and demoed it the very same day. I played it for some friends of mine, and I kept getting this feedback as so what are you gonna do with this? And I said, Well, I don't know. It's done, it's written, you know, and Rob and Trey have recorded it, and we might put it on their record, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah, so after that, did you get any other comments? I kept getting this feedback.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

This is a musical. I mean, you're stopping. You don't stop, keep expanding this thing.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Well, that makes sense. How did you feel about it?

SPEAKER_01 9:48

My first inclination was, I don't think so. But I kept getting that feedback. So one day I sat around and thought about well, I mean, if you did, where would this thing go? One thought led to another. All of a sudden I've written another song that Caroline would sing. And so then, Tony, I I wound up writing at least 10 songs.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

And all I had going was this running outline in my head. But I hadn't written down one piece of dialogue about Caroline said this and Billy said this. None of that. I just had this sort of vision of these scenarios. And then I say to myself, well, you know, Caroline should do, she should pop up and do something here, or Billy should, or somebody else should. Finally, it it was like, well, sooner or later, you're gonna have to knuckle down and actually write some words here. You're gonna have to write this story down. I really was sort of uh procrastinating until my wife really got on me one day and she said, I don't know what you're waiting for. And I did have a friend, a good friend, who was a screenplay writer and was gonna work with me on it. But then he got sidetracked doing some other projects, and that's when Janelle said, You know, I'm sure the Germany would be great, but you need to settle down, you just need to do it. And I went, you know, well, maybe I'll give it a try.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Sounds like she had the right idea. What happened next?

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Then I had to figure out, well, then how am I even gonna start this? You know, because writing songs and writing novels, that's a wee bit of a different uh proposition, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Oh, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Yeah, and so I thought back to my childhood about my family. We loved listening to radio shows. Mr. and Mrs. North, The Shadow, uh, gangbusters, all these things. I said, you know, I think I could approach it like that. I think I could write this thing as if you're listening to like a radio program. And the narrator is going to start off certain scenes, and then all of a sudden the characters start taking the dialogue over and just let it bounce back and forth. And of course, I was thinking in terms of an audiobook at that time, and I thought I think I could do that. And so that's how I wrapped my head around that I could actually maybe get this, get it done, start it, and maybe get it completed.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah, I like that. Then you add the nostalgia part of it as well. You're bringing the old into the new by doing it like a radio show, as you said. A lot of people in today's world, they don't know what a radio show is. The closest thing to a radio show to them is a podcast like we're on now.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

So doing it that way, that's a pretty darn good idea.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Well, it's it's uh what I love about it is once I got into it, I really felt like, well, you know, eventually it would be wonderful if it could be uh made into a play or film and we're talking to some folks about maybe doing something like that. But in the meantime, it's out there in the world now as an audiobook. A lot of times when people get script ideas and stuff like that, where you start working on plays, it can take years and years to see the light of day.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yeah, that's very true.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

That doesn't sound very um like something I want to just sit around and wait for. So anyway, I love it that I wrapped it completely up and it's like a two and a half hour listen. There are 20 songs that are woven in and out of the storytelling. You meet these kids when they're like 11 years old, and then at the end of Act One, they're 14 years old. And then when Act Two starts, they are actually uh there's a time jump and they're like 18. And then you follow them until they're about 22.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Okay, so who is doing the voices on this?

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Well, we ran into a really a good friend of mine, actually, who's uh an actor. He did the narration, and he really does all the narration. It's like really listening to an audiobook. And he would alter his voice just a little bit when Caroline would say something or Billy would say something, and then you just slip right into those personalities. Then when you hear them sing a song, it's actually kids singing those songs like in Act One.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Who did you get to do the singing?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

We ran into some incredibly gifted, talented singers like the girl that sings Caroline, who actually turns out to be kind of like the focal point of this project, and uh her name is Brooke Spencer. She is a stunning young singer. And then when I was looking for, like, well, now we have some more kids and people like that. I was working on a record with Joe Robinson, who's a great guitar player, singer from Australia, and he said, you know, I think Brent I can help you on some of these kids you're looking for. He said, There's a family band called the French Family Band that just moved here from Australia from Melbourne, and they've got some young kids in the family, and they're stunning players, and they're really cool singers. I looked them up on YouTube and they're wonderful. Joe put me in contact with them, and they were so excited about it. So we got together and they filled out the rest of the youth that we needed to have, you know, singing those songs in Act One. Then when we do the time jump, we have uh Caroline is then a wonderful singer in town, Shannon LeBrie, and then Joe Robinson took over the character of Jacob, and then Jason Eskridge took over the voice of Billy. And then there are some other characters in there too.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

I've had conversations with many different authors. They've written many well-known books. Some have had great stories of how they were starting writing the book, the characters were struggling. Then all of a sudden, they said the characters seemed to take a life on of their own. They took over. Did you find that happening during your process that all of a sudden the characters took over and you wasn't in as much control of writing as they were controlling the narrative?

SPEAKER_01 15:35

You know what? That is absolutely true. And that didn't really, I hadn't really processed that, Tony, until, oddly enough, a few days ago. I was sort of asked that question on a radio show not too long ago, I did, and I said, Well, you know what happens is different from songwriting is you're living, once you finish a song, if it takes a few hours, a few days, or whatever, but it's it's done, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

But I said, in writing a novel, these characters are with you 24-7. All of a sudden, they're sort of in your psyche, not that you can't turn it off and you go to a movie or things like that, of course you can. But when you're driving into work, when you're doing the darndest things, writing a, you know, my writing or whatever I'm doing, all of a sudden a scenario will just pop into your mind that Billy is doing or Caroline's gonna run into, and you just start writing it in your head. I never, you know, seem to forget much of it. They really do become sort of part of your life. Even now, they haven't gone away. Even though I finished, it's done. But they are still living inside of me. And I know that sounds very melodramatic, but I'm telling you the absolute truth. You know, when I think of Jacob and Caroline and Billy, I don't I don't think of them as little fictional characters. I really don't.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah, I get that completely. You know, in the production world, when you're producing, developing an artist, it's your baby, it's your project. When you're done, you can sit back, listen to it, and be very proud of your work. With a book, it's a little different. You develop these characters, they kind of take on their own life. So when it's done, you can sit back and say, Oh, well, it's finished. Yet they've taken on their own lives, they could go on and do something completely different, something fresh and new.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Well, yeah, and I've been asked that, like, well, what's your next one? And I don't know, Tony, because if I hadn't seen that roadside, I would have never gone down this road. So when I get sort of like these creative itches, it's usually coming from, you know, songwriting. It's like somebody calling me up and asking me if I'd like to work with them on a record. Those are the opportunities that usually come my way and kind of keep me busy. Where I think sort of an author that just does this, that's their whole life, they are constantly in this other place of waiting for the same character to get into a, you know, another book of some sort, right? Another story in their life.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yeah, you have a good point there. It's a complete different mindset for sure.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

I don't know if I'll go down this road. I can honestly say I don't know if I've done anything that's been more gratifying because it was absolutely new turf, so to speak. Something I'd never ever thought I would jump into, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Yeah, I get it. I'm glad you brought that up. You've had quite the journey here in Nashville. You've written a lot of hit records, you've produced a lot of hit records. Now you are in this other world of creating characters. How have you seen yourself evolve from when you saw that very first sign and had that very first thought of writing this? Now it's out there where people can get it, hear it, and it's a real entity. How did it change your outlook on it? Then, how did you see yourself evolve because of it?

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Um, well, you know, that's a good question. And I think now I really don't have an answer for that. You know, I don't um I think that one thing I can say on the other side of that, that all of my experiences in making records and in writing songs, and even some of my own life experiences, led me into this project and helped me get through this project. My maturity as a songwriter gave me the ability to like dig into some of these places where I needed to go. I don't think as a young 25 or six-year-old songwriter, I don't think I could have done that. I really don't. So I feel that a lot of my life's work up to now was all put to work in getting this project finished and out there, and it's incredibly rewarding.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Yeah, absolutely. I think part of the reason why it is so rewarding is it is a different entity than what you're used to doing. In the music, we've got people all around the world that will connect with us because of what we do and what we produce and all the things that intertwine. Because of this, it allowed you to open your creative mind to do something bigger than you ever thought that you might do. And because it's so different, I would think that you would look at it completely different than anything than you've ever done because it took you a little out of your comfort zone.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Yes, for sure. Absolutely. You know, when you asked me, so does that want to open my vision for other things? You know, it's like never say never. If the idea or or something would spur my imagination to take on another project that would be like this, I would embrace it a hundred percent. I would embrace it a hundred percent. And I think I could use all the experience that I got in creating either the orphan train. Obviously, that would help me moving forward in some other some other project. But it's like when I saw that road sign, it wasn't like I was looking for a road sign. It was just way right by me in a split second, and that's just what life sometimes presents you. Yeah, and so uh, will that happen again? I honestly have no idea. But I would embrace it, I can tell you that.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

That's great. That's the most important thing. Like you say, never say never. So now, most important, where do people find this? How do they follow you on what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Well, it's uh right now, it's on Amazon, it's uh Audible, Barnes and Noble, and it's uh it's called The Night of the Orphan Train, a musical novel, and then the soundtrack of all 20 songs just got released today, actually. And so, and that's out there on Spotify and every place where people streaming music now. The whole thing is out there for the world to embrace. And uh, I'm really hoping that people will um get a hold of the book and and listen to it and enjoy it. And the same thing with the music. I'm having a lot of fun on this side of it, of doing podcasts. And visiting some radio stations, and I might do some personal performances with some of the artists that recorded the songs. And so uh I'm I'm looking up I'm enjoying doing all this side of it too.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

This side of it can be very fun and entertaining as well. So in closing, we've discussed a lot of things. What do you think is very important that people know about everything that we've talked about? And is there any underlying message that you think is important for them to hear about this journey that you've taken with this?

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Well, I guess one thing is don't be afraid to go down some left turns and take some roads you never thought you would go down. I'd never dreamed I would do something like this, but now that I've done it, it has been so rewarding. And then I guess what the characters, when they came to life in me, it just reminded me of how resilient the human spirit can be. And how these little kids trying to make a go of it on the streets could find moments of absolutely joy. And their love between the three kids, Caroline, Billy, and Jacob, it grows so intense because they become their own little family. And so the book isn't all a downer. There's some places that will bring a tear to your eye, you know. And there's other places to where you may get a little terrible becoming from a place of a joyful experience. And so that's one of the things. It's just the the human spirit is sometimes a lot more strong than sometimes that we um can even uh perceive.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

It is. It really is. Well, this has been great. Great conversation, great information. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Well, thanks, Tony. I had a great time, and I'm sorry that we lost power for a while.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Yeah, the beauty of that Nashville weather for sure. Well, it's been a pleasure having you on. I really appreciate it. Thanks again. Thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the show. This has been a Tony Mantor production. For more information, contact media at plateau music.com.